Right now I am about halfway through Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend. I was reading my
daily 50-page allotment today and stumbled across this interesting quote
talking about the main character’s various identities that he had assumed:
“So John Harmon died, and Julius Handford disappeared, and
John Rokesmith was born.” (362)
I had to smile to myself. These days you don’t necessarily
need to fake your death to create a new identity (although I just recently
heard of a case where a man in New York faked his own death to move down to
Florida. Apparently people still do that kind of thing. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/04/nyregion/wife-says-long-island-man-once-feared-drowned-faked-his-death.html)
Nowadays it’s much easier to make a new identity for
yourself, even multiple identities, on the Internet. People are not necessarily
who they say they are. They are whoever they want to be. It’s easier to get
away with. There is a bigger sense of anonymity on the Internet. There is less
accountability.
People often unintentionally create different identities for
themselves on various websites. They use different usernames for websites they
become members on. They associate with different people on each website. Using
GooglePlus’s terminology, they have different “circles” at each new website.
They have an opportunity to present a different self to each circle.
Reinventing yourself, even if only in a virtual reality, has never been easier.
